


Like father, like Rawson

by Versolite



Series: A Rawson canvas [1]
Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Brotherly Angst, Brothers, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Excessive Drinking, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Jeremiah being an idiot and Christopher being scared, Self-Esteem Issues, Sorry for the pun in the title btw, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:00:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23685031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Versolite/pseuds/Versolite
Summary: “Is that so? Then, why do you look so scared of me, all of a sudden?”Christopher Rawson asks his brother to act like a man, for once and for the worst.
Relationships: Christopher Rawson (1777-1849) & Jeremiah Rawson (1787-1839)
Series: A Rawson canvas [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931890
Kudos: 4





	Like father, like Rawson

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [I'll never be more than a wolf at your door](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23511460) by [Versolite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Versolite/pseuds/Versolite). 



> Heeeey, anyone else here liking the Rawson brothers, or is it just me? :')))
> 
> I don't know, I watched Gentleman Jack in French, as it's my native language, and I found the both of these bitches particularly interesting. I feel some sympathy for Jeremiah, who appears way softer and quieter than his big brother, so have this roughly-translated fic I guess ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I hope I didn't make too many "frenchisations" and translations errors or something aha
> 
> Enjoy!

“What in hell are you doing?!”

He frowns, slightly annoyed, and takes the glass cork off its jug to get himself another drink. As the amber beverage flows in the bottom of the glass, he can see the merely spread arms of his younger brother, his half-opened lips, his inept look of beaten wife. Christopher makes sure the other man’s eyes crosses his before he reaches the glass to his lips. He grins at the indignation he can see on his face.

Maybe this time, Jeremiah will stop him. Maybe he will interfere or dare to speak. Maybe he will, at least, fake disregard for him, after seeing him drink shamelessly right in front of him. Christopher doesn’t believe that for one second, but he leaves him the benefit of the doubt. Despite the too familiar taste meeting an inured palate, he takes his time to enjoy the Irish scotch. He even takes the offense as far as turning his back to the intruder, sliding a laid-back hand into his pocket. He needs another thirty seconds before giving up on the game and finishing the drink with a brief head gesture.

The newcomer still doesn’t say a thing, and the older one finally glares at him. Jeremiah has looked down and seems already resigned to move on.

Nothing surprising, here, but still disappointing, nonetheless.

“I’m guessing you went to the Lister’s place”, Christopher says. “How did the negotiation go?

-B-badly. She’s still aiming for an unreasonable price, and I’m afraid she will stay inflexible about it, I-

-Have you even tried to be firm as I asked you to?”

His despising tone hits the nail on the head. His brother –associate rather than brother, as far as he’s concerned, though he’s unworthy of both terms– looks away, his grimace creating a disgusting skin wave on his flabby face. Christopher lifts his hand before the other gets a chance to speak; the mere idea of hearing his voice again makes him feel nauseous.

“Your advantage, Jeremiah, is that you’re somehow personable, at least more than me, according to some… people. But if you keep on being so malleable, on top of that by a _woman_ , as mannish as Anne Lister is… you will put us both on court. Do you realize how incompetent it is to expose a magistrate to the loss of his own case?

-I-I think maybe we should send her letters… Or ask her to come and see you here, or-

-Then can you tell me what’s exactly the use of having you?

-I beg your pardon?! Christopher, you’re always ignoring my advice, and, and acting like-!”

He stops his own speech. The older one waits for him to go on, staring at his hunched-up features. He often can push Jeremiah over the edge and knows how to hassle him until he finally protests to what appears to him as injustices. This kind of revolt usually doesn’t last long, and each time, the younger one must withdraw with fear instead of finally facing him.

“What was that, Jeremiah? What were you saying?” Christopher insists. “What am I ignoring? You maybe think you’re being smart, by submitting to the Lister and letting them fool you? This woman… she knows what we are up to.”

He suddenly approaches Jeremiah, and pushes his index finger on his chest, his thumb and middle finger still holding the glass. Seeing his face turning pale strengthen his assurance.

“She _knows_ , can’t you see? And it’s for this precise reason she can allow herself to be so intransigent! She thinks she holds us by the neck because you’re as weak in front of her as you always have been!

-T-there’s nothing else I can do, really, I… We are at fault, here, we can’t just recklessly keep following our path without giving in to her demands. It would put us more at risk, don’t you understand?!

-Don’t _you_ understand? When you’re making a risky bet, you don’t just step back as soon as the consequences appear –they always do appear, to tax our ability to face danger. We are not stupid sheep chased by a shepherd dog after grazing the wrong pasture. Or should I say, this is not what _I_ am, brother dear. We are wolves. And we will take as much as we can to this bloody Anne Lister, and even more. Her domain will fall. Her people will fall. Do you really think she’s an insurmountable obstacle, just because she impresses you? She’s just a woman, and you will have to learn how to lift your head and act as a man to face her.

-Christopher, I don’t know how I’m supposed to…

-Then find quickly”, cuts off his brother.

He abruptly puts the glass on the living room’s table and leaves his younger brother behind without further ado.

Maybe this time, the message is conveyed.

“We’re going to- what in hell are you doing??”

There is something in his brother’s voice that he loves. Something he was fearing, not so long before, but that now he doesn’t care about anymore. Maybe Christopher was right, in the end. Maybe all he needed was to take a risky bet.

But something –a need, a blind and foolish rage, or a terribly lucid one– prevented him from immediately facing Miss Lister. He cannot take the risk to test his new-found bravery in the eyes of this singular woman. He cannot allow himself to fail in front of all the inhabitants of Shibden Hall, he cannot allow himself to come home the tail between the legs and be insulted by his brother as he always has been.

That’s why he had to face Christopher before anyone else.

As he remembers his brother doing, Jeremiah lifts the glass to his lips, maybe a tan too quickly. He expects it to be violently removed from his hand, like a toy. But his brother must be way too stunned to think of it, and there is something immensely satisfying to see him frown without moving. Jeremiah feels no fear, when his brother’s voice gets louder:

“Jeremiah, drop that immediately!”

Nothing scares him anymore. He lets go of a grin. He wouldn’t want to see himself in a mirror, at that exact moment; he only is able to conceive his bloodshot stare, his messy hair, the same hair he always takes so much care to brush correctly in the morning. Everyone at home –only at home can this nonsense be told– always praise how beautiful he looks; how sweet his charms are. “You still have got the face of a marriageable child”, Mother always says with a tender smile.

A dull and repellent one, in fact. His face is a shout of his infirmity, his incompetence, his absurdity. Jeremiah Rawson knows he has the features of a foregone man, the kind who bends before everything, who will never know how to grasp his life. The man for the job isn’t him. Christopher is the real Mister Rawson. Jeremiah knows that, Christopher knows that. The Lister as well don’t ignore that fact, despite the many visits he pays them. Who is he still kidding?

Oh, sure, he is more tender than Christopher. More _personable_ , more _malleable_ , just as his brother was saying a couple of days before. Christopher was riding to the four winds, looking out for opportunities, entering into complicity with the worst individuals he could imagine, while he himself was sitting in the house, listening to Mother while she was forbidding him to ever be like his older brother. It was his greatest fear and discomfort, and it was reminded to him every time his brother was coming back home, and their stares were meeting. Jeremiah could smile and try to communicate with him as he wanted, seeking in optimism any good sign in the whole day he was hearing about, he perfectly knew. He perfectly knew how terrible of a person his brother was, what harmful example he would make, later in his life. And for further evidence, Jeremiah could always take the several warnings of his family and all the people who ever tried to guide him. Christopher Rawson wouldn’t ever serve the morals, and if Jeremiah wanted to keep his principles untouched, he shouldn’t follow the footsteps of his brother.

But he didn’t listen to his principles, and as a woman marries a man for his property and a situation, he held on to his brother to not sink. Because he didn’t want to end up his life as a sad dumb old man, waiting alone in a gray home, because he didn’t want the world around him to devour him, he did that. Because he couldn’t let himself disappear in a derisory role which would likely end into nothing, and be unarmed with his way-too-soft disposition, he complied to the law of the strongest.

If he has had illusions, at some point, about himself, his choices and public image, time got the better of them. For a while, letters from various friends did nothing but increase his hopes, his confidence and his more genuine certitude that he was a good person and acting for the best; all of that actually contributed to blind him.

Oh, he must look _marriageable_ , right now. He must be horribly ugly; indifferently, this idea makes his grin go wider. He feels as furious as a mad dog, but he makes sure for now to not knock on anything, to not ruin an object by being careless. He has been angry for so long, he realizes. For so long, his rage has been staying quiet, hollow as a ridiculous sound in the bottom of an empty basin.

“Jeremiah, I forbid you to drink.” Fear is now all he can hear in his brother’s voice.

“Forbid yourself to fuck off, Christopher.”

He can’t let him approach him, he realizes in a lucid second, as a gesture of his brother suggests he could. He immediately steps back, maybe too bluntly, and hits the dressing table. He seizes the head mannequin they usually put the powdered wigs on, keeping an eye on the other man. He hears the faint noise of the glass he lets go of, and which falls on the soft carpet without damage. He is going to throw up, soon, or he is going to do something he will certainly regret, and none of these options sound this bad to him.

“You wanted me to… how were you saying… Act as a man? You wanted me to face miss Lister, is that it?”

He knows. He saw it, and despite the serious look on Christopher’s face, he can’t make Jeremiah forget the moment his face lightened up, when he saw him like this. It’s this way he wants his brother to be, this way he wants him to act. Now he can’t deny it anymore. Jeremiah saw the pride in his face, and won’t let anything disillusion him.

“You won’t face anyone by being drunk, Jeremiah.

-Is that so? Then, why do you look so scared of me, all of a sudden?”

Christopher can grit his teeth as he does now, he can get angry with him, if he wants. They will fight like cat and dog, like brothers are supposed to, and they will at last be on the same page. At last, they will be ready to face together the stupid conditions of the coal owner, and there won’t be problems anymore.

Not anymore he will feel that weak.

“I’m not scared of you.

-Admit it. You wanted me to be this way. I saw it on your face, when you came in.” A more pleasant idea suddenly rushes through his head. “Or… Oh, oh no, that is so sad… you wanted to keep me this way? You wanted to keep being this goddamn predator, and play around, biting any sheep you’d meet, while I’d never be more than a wolf at your door, for dinner?”

He blurts a sudden sputter, and his hand let go of the mannequin he took earlier to prevent him from falling, as he vomits. He can feel the movement of the air when Christopher looks away, disgusted.

He doesn’t know well how he feels anymore. Maybe he didn’t make the good decision, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> There would have been a potential for this fic to be way more angsty and bad, so I probably took the "soft" route with this ending. Hope you still liked it if you read until this point!


End file.
